From Crosstown Traffic:
Gov. Bev Perdue says $466 million in federal spending for road and bridge projects will create about 14,000 jobs in North Carolina.
Dividing $466 million by 14,000 yields an average income of about $33,000. However, using Romer-Bernstein method's mulitiplier of 1.5, the $466 million road stimulus will generate $669 million in GDP. This is about 0.005% of GDP in a $14 trillion economy. Using the Romer-Bernstein Rule, each 1% of GDP generates 1 million jobs, the North Carolina road component of the stimulus bill will generate only about 5000 new Carolina (i.e., sky) blue jobs.
Previous overestimates using the Romer-Bernstein rule of thumb (RBRT) can be found here and here. Here is one where the jobs are underestimated locally when scrutinized with the RBRT (pronounced "Robert", AKA "Bob" for short).
Here is my "Bob Jobs" MS Works spreadsheet if you'd like to play the game yourself (Download Bob Jobs). Simply type in the government spending in column A and the number of Bob Jobs will pop out in column F.
